Most
diets fail because they revolve solely around caloric reduction. Any
diet using this antiquated method is doomed. Users are sure to be left
disappointed at best, lethargic and heavy at worst. Learning how to
harness the power of a “calorie,” rather than avoid it,
can lead to fat loss as well as increased energy and the growth of lean
sexy muscle, at any age.

If
you can light a stove to boil water, you can understand what a calorie
is and how it’s measured. You can also understand why not all
calories are equal in the human body. (And this is why I get so frustrated
when I hear physicians and health guru’s insist that fat loss
is simply a matter of calories in, calories out.) Give me eight minutes
to explain – you may be skinnier just for reading this…

A
calorie is a unit of measure that defines how much energy is generated
from a given food when burned. Nutritionally speaking, the heat generated
from food is quantified by its ability to heat one gram of water. In
other words, does the “match of food” boil the gram of water
or does it just cause it to get Luke warm?

If
boiling ensues, the food is said to be high in calories (energy) and
vice-versa. To measure this energy, a device known as a calorimeter
is used.

So
technically, a calorie is just an arbitrary number that describes how
food burns in a calorimeter. That’s the most important thing to
understand. A food gets hot and releases varying amounts of heat.

The
human body however, is not a calorimeter. It’s a natural wonder
of science, with trillions of cells, all working in unison to harness
the energy required to beat up a psychiatrist…I mean working in
unison to harness the energy required for perfect health, fitness, and
physique. And, unlike a calorimeter, the body doesn’t treat calories
equally. Therefore, you can’t measure weather a food is good or
bad, based simply on “how many calories it has.”

When
stuffed into our pie-hole, a calorie has inescapable effects on our
hormones – the instruments that guide it toward its own unique
perfection. See, that’s the difference. Calorimeters don’t
have hormones (over stressed, in case drug reps are reading). When you
consume a calorie, the body utilizes it for hormone production to activate
basic functions like DNA replication, heartbeat, muscle growth, fat
metabolism and detoxification just to name a few. The wrong calorie
will actually stifle this process.

If
excess caloric energy is left over, one of two things can happen. It
can get stored as fat, which you don’t want unless you’re
a Kardashian and can pay tens of thousands of dollars in make-up and
wardrobe to hide it. Or it can get released through metabolic process’
known as lypolysis and thermogenesis. It’s either burn, or store.

Your
goal as a “fat man turned sexy” or “fat mom turned
phenon mom” is to avoid counting the wrong calorie, and count
the right one: the one that doesn’t get stored as fat. Or said
another way, the one that works with your hormones not against them,
and surprisingly enough, this is usually high calorie foods, not “low-cal!”

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I’ll
admit, you can count the wrong calorie or choose low-cal foods, while
at the same time minimize intake to lose weight. Heck, one low-cal yogurt,
Vitamin Water or a single Snickers bar per day would cause my body weight
to plummet. But that’s stupid. No, matter how good those damn
things taste; I wouldn’t be able to sport the athletic physique
that makes my wife look twice at me after 11 years of marriage (I know
it’s superficial, and I wish she would just love me for me, but
I tried that and it didn’t work.). And all diets basically revolve
around this lame brain attempt to lose weight.

Over
time, reducing the wrong calories – or eating low-cal foods –
will cause muscles to deteriorate and skin cells to become dry and brittle,
allowing for increased wrinkles and sag. Libido and focus will also
take a dive and aging will accelerate. Plus, you’ll eventually
get hungry and over consume the wrong calorie, and now you’re
in for a fat storing whirlwind because hormones get out of whack. And
speaking from experience (I was once 40lbs over weight), it’s
not pretty…

If
any of these calories are in your “diet,” beware, even if
you are “losing weight.” Hopefully by now, you know that
weight loss isn’t a measure of health and fitness or even “hotness.”

Sure,
you want the pounds to drop, but you want that in addition to lean,
sexy muscle growth, glowing skin and kick ass energy all day. To get
this, you need the calories that get you into the “Hotty Hall
of Fame.”

Calories
that get you looking good, come from real foods like organic, grass
fed meat, seeds, nuts, avocados, eggs, butter as well as coconut and
olive oil. Even a moderate amount of dry wine can be readily processed
as the right calorie, which is why nobody ever sported a “wine
belly” at the beach.

Despite
being higher in healthy fat and calories, the above foods make us feel
fuller faster and longer, preventing us from eating ourselves to death
via overeating and snacking. Even better, they raise fat burning and
anti-aging hormones in the body, allowing excess calories to be released
as energy rather than stored as the “hey, is my face looking fatter”
calorie.

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There’s
one caveat missed by purveyors of the “right” calorie. You
have to prep your body to take part in the hormonal process of dealing
with the right calorie. As shown in my book, Over-The-Counter Natural
Cures, you must harness “hormonal intelligence,” which
comes from sticking to key, lifestyle habits. Blindly shoving your face
full of the right calories – while discounting lifestyle –
isn’t going to allow you to “eat yourself thin” courtesy
of some magical metabolic process in the body.

In
summary, counting calories is important. But, most diets fail because
they don’t teach you how to count the right one. Incorporate the
right calorie into your everyday life and you’ll achieve that
perfect physique you were born to have. And people will start looking
at your twice.

Ellison’s
entire career has been dedicated to the study of molecules; how they give
life and how they take from it. He was a two-time recipient of the prestigious
Howard Hughes Medical Institute Research Grant for his research in biochemistry
and physiology. He is a bestselling author of Over-The-Counter
Natural Cures, which helps you live healthier and pay less with $10
lifesaving supplements for under $10! Learn
more here.